


Ser, my lady

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, F/M, Idiots in Love, Marriage Proposal, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, Short One Shot, Sort Of, Sweet, i dont even know, reasonably sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: in the morning after their first night, Jaime proposed they marry.Briennd did not take it well.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 12
Kudos: 198





	Ser, my lady

**Author's Note:**

> written 13 july 2020 - 20 august 2020, apparently? yiketh

She’s been crying all afternoon; that much is obvious. Her eyelids are swollen and her cheeks pink, the scar puffed up and lurid.  “Jaime,” she says.

“I brought you food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat." She shakes her head so he says it again, making light: “Can’t have you starving and keeling over, you’re the best knight we‘ve got ...”

“I’m no knight,” she says, irritable, but this time she moves aside and lets him come in and set down the tray. It’s not much — brown bread, a bowl of stew, a slice of cheese barely large enough to keep a mouse alive. 

He had to beg for most of it -- although the cook added the cheese when Jaime mentioned who it was for. She’s feeling poorly, he had said, leaving out the part about it being his fault. 

She sits down across from him and watches him pick pieces off the bread. Just like a Lannister to steal from me: he sees it in her face. She takes it away from him, growling like a dog: “That’s mine!” 

And then, because she is Brienne, she tears it apart and gives him half.

Gods, he loves her. “I love you,” he says.

She eats the stew like she’s never handled a spoon before, and wipes out the bowl with bread. Cersei would disdain, Tyrion would laugh. Their father must be rolling over in his grave, if there’s room in the coffin for the cross-bow bolt to turn. 

“I love you and I want you to marry me.”

She takes Jaime’s bread — he has stopped nibbling on it — and eats that, too.  Then she eats the cheese, rind and all. 

She really was hungry.

“I wish you’d stop that,” she says.

“Eating your food?”

She levels him a glare and doesn’t reply.

“I am in earnest, ser.”

“I’m not a _ser_.”

He slouches down in the chair and lifts his boot on his knee, poking at the worn-down heel. “If I knight you, will you wed me then?”

Brienne turns red. “The two things have nothing to do with each other.”

“I agree.”

“How can you,” she begins, and stops herself; she stands and paces the room, rubbing her arms. “How can you sit there and say things to me, like — how can you treat this as a jest?”

“Do you think I go about offering sacred vows to all the maidens? Come on now. I’ve been faithful to one woman for the first forty years of my life and I intend to be faithful to another for the next. You,” he adds, because she’s frowning at him again. “I mean you, wench.”

She keeps a careful distance away. “This isn’t about me. This is about ... about Cersei, and the undead, and what happened last night —“

“You make me wish I’d never come to you.” Lies: he’ll never regret what happened, the taste of her body and the sounds she made. 

But her face falls. “I knew you would regret it soon.”

“Only because you think — stop that. Are you crying again? Wench,” and he rises up, only taking her by the arm when he’d like to kiss her senseless. “Brienne. I only meant I should have married you first, before the bedding. But no,” because she’s shaking her head. “You’d find some way to twist that into a statement of duty and convention, wouldn’t you? What can I say or do?“

She shakes her head again: but this time she leans in to catch his face between her hands. She presses her forehead to his. “You’d not lie to me about this?”

“About loving you? Wanting you? Needing—“

He doesn't finish the sentence: her mouth is against his, and there’s nothing more to be said in words.

**Author's Note:**

> it should be easy for Brienne to marry Jaime -- he isn't trying to get Tarth, he isn't looking to elevate his station, he just can't wait to NOT be King -- but since he doesn't need money or titles or big place, that means he wants ... her.
> 
> i think she'd have a very difficult time accepting that.


End file.
